Fabrication and investigation of influence of CaCO3 as foaming agent on Al-SiCp foam

• Published in: Materials and manufacturing processes Vol. 34; no. 4; pp. 379 - 384
• Main Authors: Rajak, Dipen Kumar, Mahajan, Nikhil N., Das, S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis 12-03-2019
• Subjects: absorption; Aluminum; CaCO; density; energy; foam; plateau; SiC
• DOI: 10.1080/10426914.2018.1532093
• EISSN: 1532-2475
• ISSN: 1042-6914

Closed cell aluminum foams have been used in various disciplines of engineering. Aluminum foams provide high strength with the advantage of low weight. In the current research, CaCO
3
is used as a foaming agent for producing closed-cell aluminum foams. For the fabrication of homogenous foam, optimization of process parameters was done. The effect of SiC as a thickening agent on structural property of foams viz. density and porosity have been inspected. Foams with density 0.40-0.86 g/cm
3
were produced. The produced foams were studied under axial compression tests for evaluating mechanical properties. It can be inferred from the results that by adding 3 wt.% CaCO
3
, the uniform viscosity of melt was achieved and a homogeneous foam structure is achieved with optimum porosity. Also, 5 wt.% addition of CaCO
3
in melt and stirring speed at 1400 rpm tend to increase porosity and decrease cell wall thickness. The optimum values for thickening agent SiC, foaming agent CaCO
3
at stirring speed 1400 rpm were found out to be 15 wt.%, 3 wt.%. The effect of relative density, the addition of thickening and foaming agent is studied.